Charges for business cards, stationery products and the like constitute a significant portion of any commercial enterprise's cost of doing business. Due, in general, to the labor intensive nature of type-setting and, in particular, to the necessity to specifically tailor each product to a particular user's identity and/or office location, the actual printing costs associated with these items have traditionally far exceeded the costs associated with other print media. In addition, while smaller entities are more readily able to incorporate card and stationery ordering functions into other job functions, large institutional and conglomerate users often find that a significant number of personnel must be dedicated solely to the functions of order preparation, approval, submission, proofing, receiving, quality assurance and distribution. To further exacerbate the problem, each of these functions tends to be labor-intensive, each giving rise to the possibility for error, the only recourse being to reinitiate the entire process. Although such institutional and conglomerate users as are most affected by these problems have traditionally been expedient in rooting out similar problems in other areas of their businesses, they without exception tolerate these issues due to the generally accepted perception that no better system exists.
From the printer's perspective, the processes involved in receiving an order, typesetting a business card or stationery product and corresponding with the client to proof the order are typically more involved, and consequently often more costly, than the actual printing of the order. To further the frustration felt by the printer, the proofing process is ripe for dispute with the client, leading too often to the difficult decision as to whether to reprint an order free of charge or risk loss of the client by billing on a disputed order. What is more, even if the printer decides to discuss such an issue with its client, the regional printer must then at minimum absorb the long distance telephone charges involved in addition to those telecommunication charges already necessitated in faxing proofs and other related order documentation. Like the institutional and conglomerate users they serve, however, printers have consistently failed to address these issues, without exception accepting the present system as simply the best available.
Clearly, there is long-standing need for an improved print order system that eliminates these widely varied but unnecessarily cost-increasing functions. As a result, it is a primary object of the present invention to introduce an entirely new concept in business card and stationery ordering and printing for use by large institutional and conglomerate clients as well as the printers that serve their respective needs. In implementation of this concept, it is a further object of the present invention to provide an internet based print order system that minimizes data entry at the user site, streamlines the order approval process, eliminates the necessity for individual order proofing and eliminates data entry at the printer location. It is a still further object of the present invention to provide such as system that makes order status information automatically available for the user and incorporates the printer's billing functions directly into the order process. Likewise, it is a still further object of the present invention to facilitate drop-shipment of finished products by eliminating the need for user-side quality assurance and enabling orders to be processed according to destination address. Finally, it is an overriding object of the present invention to increase customer satisfaction by providing consistently accurate, fully company tailored business card and stationery products on a greatly reduced order processing timeline without sacrifice of control by the purchasing agent or of quality in the finished product.